The Sons of Kahn and the Witch of Wookey

Stob Editor's Note: Verity Stob's Chronicles of Delphi [King James ed.] began in 1996. The most recent translations can be found here: The Sons of Kahn and the assembly language of the internet, here: The Sons of Kahn and the Pascal spring and here: Sons of Kahn: The Apocrypha.

1. Now it came to pass the Sons of Kahn, who did dwell in the Valley of the Scotts, did begat Delphi for many platforms.
2. And those parts that they did not begat locally they did source out to Russians and Spanish. For it is written: blessed is the man who hireth not the American coder, for he shall keep his dollars entrousered.
3. And they went forth and made Delphi for 64-bit Windows, and for Mac OS X, and for iOS.
4. And they also did make support for the Internet of Things. Wherefore with an appropriate Bluetooth LE enabled sensor, a mobile telephone and a few dozen lines of Pascal, one can discover from anywhere in the world if the seat has been left up.
5. For such is the awesome power of the IoT.
6. And they did also make Delphi for Android. And they made versions for Ice Cream Sandwich, and for Jelly Bean, and for KitKat, and for Lollipop, and for Maketh My Teeth Hurt Just Reading This
7. And, notwithstanding Kylix they did they did plan a version for Linux. And it seems likely this will accommodate Ubuntu Xenial Xerus, Yakkety Yak and Ziggy Stardust (dec'd) .
8. And so it understandably befell the Sons of Kahn that they did catch the fashion for silly version names.
9. So the current version of Delphi, that hath the codename 'Big Ben', is called 'Berlin'.
10. Moreover the next version, that hath the codename 'Godzilla', shall be called 'Reykjavik', probably. Or perhaps 'Loughborough'.
11. Thus passeth the time in the Valley of the Scotts.

The followers

1. Now the followers of the Sons of Kahn were divided into two factions.
2. There was the Grey Faction, who were long in years. And these followers did tarry in NNTP news groups. And they wrote Delphi 7 programs for 32-bit Windows. And in their spare time they did listen to Classic FM, because Radio 4 is just too violent these days, ever since nice Mr. Titchener got stabbed.
3. But there was also the Youth Faction, who were indeed very young, some being barely in their mid-forties. And these followers did hang out in GitHub and Google Plus. And they wrote Delphi Berlin programs that ran on multiple platforms, or at least considered so doing. And in their spare time, they organised Twitter-based attempts to hijack online polls of programming language popularity.
4. (And one other thing about the Youth Faction: they prefixed every paragraph they spoke with the word 'so'. For they did not realise how ridiculous it is to begin every thought with the same, repeated conjunction.)
5. And these two factions were in conflict, and they loved not one another.
6. And the Youth Faction called out unto the Grey Faction saying: So how goeth it with the Vista Development Club, you grandfathers of Kahn? Hast thy niece upgraded thy lapdog from Windoze XP yet?
7. And the Grey Faction replied, saying: Pshaw. Mock not our objects! Respect you the name of Kahn!
8. And the Youth Faction replied unto them: So we do too remember who Kahn was, he was the baddie in an early Trek movie possibly in black-and-white.
9. And so the Grey Faction saw that the Step Father of Delphi was forgot amongst his own. Nor was he remembered for the first hyper-productive software project. Nor yet did they even remember him as the inventor of the camera phone, and thus hath gifted unto us sexting and exciting new forms of teenage bullying culture.
10. And the Grey Faction retired from the field, sadly muttering: Sic Transit Gloria Sidekick .

Idera. Blows. In.

1. Then news came from the the Valley of the Scotts that the citadel of Embarcadero where they dwell had been purchased . And the purchasers were the tribe of Idera, that tradeth in decorative doodads for SQL Server.
2. And the Iderans did possess a corporate slogan of formidable daftness, viz: Never. Slow. Down.
3. And the Iderans looked upon the Sons of Kahn, and spake unto them, saying: Who. Are. You.
4. And the Sons of Kahn replied unto the Iderans, saying: We are the Sons of the Kahn.
5. Then the Iderans spake unto the Sons of Kahn, asking: What. You. Do.
6. And the Sons of Kahn answered: We are the keepers of the Delphi compiler.
7. But the Iderans replied unto them, enquiring: What. Is. Delphi.
8. Then the Sons of Kahn did murmur among themselves, saying: Uh-oh.
9. Whereupon the Sons of Kahn repaired to their bolt holes, and battened their loins, and girded their hatches. And they were wise so to do.
10. Then in not many months, some were blogging gratefully that, after many happy years as Sons of Kahn, they were very excited because the Iderans had kindly gifted them the opportunity not to be Sons of Kahn any more.
11. And it so happened that many others, who kept not blogs, yet also were afforded this gift.
12. And those that remained were taught the Ideran way. And it came to pass then even poor DavidEye Wrote. Headlines. Like. This.
13. And then Idera did absorb the rump of Embarcadero into its maw, with cheerful shouts of Economies. Of. Scale.
14. But the remaining Sons of Kahn were held separate from the rest. And it was like CodeGear all over again.

Reaction of the Followers

1. And when the followers of the Sons of Khan heard what had happened, they were sore afraid.
2. Whereupon they decided to consult with the Wookey Witch, who did dwell in Wookey Hole . For she was the best available mad lady in a cave, in the absence of the original Delphic Oracle.
3. And she was also reasonably priced, having had the good sense to change the spelling of 'Wookey', and so dodge the Lucasfilm licensing fees.
4. And the followers did debate among themselves. And the Youth Faction spake, saying: So we should put a test question, which is ungoogleable yet verifiable, to prove her mettle.
5. And the Grey Faction replied, saying: We have just the thing.
6. Then they put their question. And the answer came back: next week's Classic FM chart will be topped by André Rieu's That's What I Call Waltzing 54.
7. And so it was. For it usually is.
8. Then the followers of the Sons of Khan put their real question, which was: whither the coders of Delphi?
9. But the reply came: they shall follow Anders always.
10. And the Youth Faction spake, saying: So what does that mean already? Should we go with C#? Xamarin looks like a pretty good deal these days, especially compared with Delf.
11. And the Grey Faction replied, saying: What, give in to the foul cult of curly brackets? Never! We shall use Pascal forever, be it Delphi, FPC, Oxygene, or something web based Smart Pascal
12. And another part of the Youth Faction spake up, saying: So if you going Web-based, why not keep it modern and Anders and do some TypeScript ?
13. And so they did fall to bickering and fruitless argument. For they had forgotten the prime rule of Pascal programming and prophesy.
14. Which is: Ask a Delphic question, get a Delphic answer.

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